Pilgrimage 4 (Pilgrimage, #9-13) in Reading 1001

Dec 26, 2019 Pip rated it it was amazing

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One of the characters in The Pilgrimage tells the protagonist that if she could write about people the way she writes about nature she would become a good novelist. Dorothy Richardson wrote something unlike any novel written up until that time. Her meticulous descriptions of everyday events reminded me of Proust and his madeleine; the harking back to previous events such as the incidents in tearooms reminded me of Powell, and having finished this mammoth tome I have an equal sense of satisfactio One of the characters in The Pilgrimage tells the protagonist that if she could write about people the way she writes about nature she would become a good novelist. Dorothy Richardson wrote something unlike any novel written up until that time. Her meticulous descriptions of everyday events reminded me of Proust and his madeleine; the harking back to previous events such as the incidents in tearooms reminded me of Powell, and having finished this mammoth tome I have an equal sense of satisfaction in having completed it. Actually, I believe I enjoyed it more than Proust, because I could identify much more easily with Richardson's description of social gatherings where she stops to wonder what she was doing there, rather than Proust's enjoyment of them. I also felt more affinity for Richardson's love of solitude and her appreciation of living and insisting on the Being rather than Becoming which she labelled a more masculine outlook. Her careful examination of how married women responded their spouse made her heroine, Miriam, decide against giving up her liberty to a man and one of the important themes is how differently men and women view the world and, in particular, how women are more attuned to what men want while men remain oblivious to women's needs. How much did that resonate with this reader! She was describing the time of the suffragette movement and the rise of socialism, both of which feature in interesting ways, particularly when Miriam gets rather strident. So like my young self! I especially relished Richardson's descriptions of living independently in London. She did not seem to have the fear of getting about (even at midnight) in the big city that one assumes a young woman at the turn of last century would experience. She dared to enter an unsalubrious cellar late one evening that became an habitual haunt. She had little money but she made little of that because she so valued her independence. Her descriptions of nature were, however, spectacular. Her sojourn in Switzerland made one want to spend a winter in the Alps and her stay on a farm near the sea in a Quaker community made one appreciate the patience and solidity of those people. Altogether a most meaningful and satisying read. Oh, that more men would read it!
Notes on Oberland
I enjoyed the different setting for Oberland, too. Especially the description of light in the Alps and Miriam's shock and disapproval of the amount of electric light in her bedroom! Her description of sunlight on mountain snow was really evocative, and I particularly enjoyed her description of tobagganing, skating and ski jumping. But just as I identified so very much with Miriam's descriptions of her social interactions (I really loved the New Year's Eve Party in The Trap) I absolutely identified with Miriam as a tourist. Her description of a tour group, as opposed to an independent traveller, is absolutely spot on: All these people were serene; had come in groups, unscathed, knowing their way, knowing how to quell the bloused fiends into helpfulness. By then, also, the journey to them was uniformly grey, a tiresome business to be got through; not black and sudden gold exactly how I feel about travelling independently rather than in a group. Again " people who travel in groups and bring with them so much of their home surroundings that they destroy daily, piecemeal, the sense of being abroad.
She also reflects on how being in a different environment affects her sense of self, remembering when hearing the Chopin played on the piano how much music had meant to her when she was in Germany. She used "freemasonry" as shorthand for people being more friendly and less rigid about class and gender than at home. There are indelible descriptions of her interactions, especially sitting on the stairs deep in discussion with Vereker and Eaden, or haranguing Guerini about the merits of socialism. She almost has another proposal from Guerini, which she contemplates until he suggests coming to London, which was much less appealing than to live in Italy! Her descriptions made me long for a winter holiday even though I am too decrepit for skiing these days.
Notes on Dawn's Left Hand
I also very much liked the reference to how incredibly hard the work of keeping a man charmed is. "...having no idea of the difficulty, the sheer hard work of holding herself in his world and keeping him at his ease even for an hour." I noted the same quote as Gail did, and thought it another instance of how much Richardson manages to write about things that are important to me, too, like social situations and travel and gender bias, but which I have never expressed. A lot happens in this volume. Miriam finally loses her virginity (or at least this is what I guess) with Hypo Wilson, not because she is fatally attracted to him, but more, I guess, because she is 28 and wants to experience sex for herself. Before that happens she enjoys dinner and a night at the opera with Hypo and his wife Alma. The affair seems to be over by the end of the chapter, but there are some wonderful discussions along the way. I was interested in the idea of discreet private dining rooms which allow for sexual escapades. Who knew? At the same time Miriam gets involved with a young French woman, Amabel, who has fallen in love with her, who learns about socialism to understand her and moves into the room next door so she can be with Miriam all the time. Whether this relationship has a sexual component is even more difficult than usual to work out. Oberland now becomes shorthand for individual freedom and happiness. I have done similar things, using a sojourn in Biarritz, for example, as a key word for certain states of mind. The themes of the importance of music and asking "what am I doing here" crop up again and also the role that wives of professional men play, subsuming their own personalities. Like so many of the wives of professional husbands, she seemed to be both her husband's guardian and a masked being who betrayed, by the emphasis of her statements, how little of her inward self was behind what she said. An eager, busy, well-dressed ghost, fearful of anything that seemed to threaten the ideas he represented. Wearing her husband's attainments as a personal decoration....Reminding herself of the many wives in whose eyes she had surprised private meditation going its way behind an appearance of close attention to a familiar voice . Miriam has no intention of ever being that kind of wife. She discusses as much with Hypo, while trying to convey what Amabel is like. He has stated "Men and women are incompatible. It's one of life's little difficulties and Miriam replies that Amabel Regards the colossal unawareness of a man as an amiable defect. But she agrees, although she finds it also screamingly funny, that the way all down the ages men have labelled their sexual impulses "woman" is quite monstrous" The best quote in the whole book so far!
Notes on Clear Horizon
I am still intrigued by the titles Richardson chose. Is the Clear Horizon a description of the decisions she was coming to make in the course of this volume? Because we have no idea where she is going, a hint that it is going to be longer than the six months she has told people she is going for, and a hint that she may (or may not) have had a nervous breakdown. Was this in relation to the out-of-body experience that she described as the world of hard fact she had just visited? Neither Hypo or Amabel believed it as fact, only as metaphor. But Miriam believed that it showed a change; that the whole of the past had been a long journey in a world of illusion and in her immovable new condition (pregnancy?) this cold contemplation of reality stripped of its glamour were all that remained. She attends a concert with the spurned Michael, where she contemplates the end of her relationship with him and the pain it had caused. She admitted the wreckage, but insisted at the same time upon the ultimate departure of regret, the way sooner ot later it merged into the joy of a secret companionship restored; a companionship that again and again, setting aside the evidence of common sense, and then the evidence of feeling, had turned her away from entanglements by threatening to depart, and had always brought, after the wrenching and the wreckage, moments of joy that made the intermittent miseries, so rational and so passionate and so brief, a small price to pay. So she is contemplating breaking off her relationship with Hypo, despite or because of the pregnancy, and with Amabel, too. Her independence is more precious than any relationship. She describes being pregnant as bodily youth mysteriously decayed and by the gathering, upon her person of cumbrous flesh. Unable either to impose and make it comely, or to check its outrageous advance. She becomes unimpressed with Hypo's intelligence and decides that he is just a collector of virginities and equally of Amabel's posturing and recollects that the latter has probably deliberately broken open her casket to read the letters of the former. The ever reliable Densley, whom she visits only because she needs help for her ailing sister, gently suggests that she is in need of recuperation herself. And so she leaves her job and both her current relationships.
Notes on Dimple Hill
I particularly liked Miriam describing how fresh and healthy the food was on the farm. Also the description of how she meditated in the Quaker meetings she attended. Both episodes exemplified Richardson's burrowing down through exquisite detail into the essence of the experiences. Her relationship with Richard was puzzling. Did she do more than admire his stoic physicality? As with all of the preceding books there are gaps we need to fill. I liked her description of the alphabet of Quakerism having some letters missing. The same could be said for Richardson's writing!
Notes on March Madness
I was expecting this to be much more disjointed than it was. Perhaps I no longer expect too much plot from Richardson anyway! There were unexplained vignettes from a pension in Switzerland, but not the one in Oberland, where she gets involved with a young, pious Scotswoman who also has a thing for a Bishop; family interaction with a young nephew; more ruminations on women's disappearance after marriage and the advantages and drawbacks of life in a small community; a fling with a young ex-priest from France back at Dimple Hill, from which she is evicted, partly because of a postcard from a young Russian emigre of Rodin's The Kiss; the suicide of said Russian: and boarding back in London at a Young Women's Hostel with prayer times and a strict curfew which inexplicably doesn't seem to worry Miriam. Maybe there was more plot than I thought! The novel ends with Miriam holding Paul, the baby of Michael and Amabel and surprisingly noting how serene she felt with the baby against her breast. She wonders if Jean and her husband had a child whether she would feel the same sense of fulfillment. We are left wondering. ...more

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Nov 21, 2019 Jennifer Paul rated it really liked it

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Pilgrimage is a 13 volume, 2110 page novel published between 1915 and 1967. From what I鈥檝e found it is currently out of print, but fairly easy to access through used copies of Virago Modern Classics which published the work in 4 volumes. Originally, each volume was published individually until Dimple Hill, the 12th volume. It and the final installment, March Moonlight, were only published in full volume sets.

Pilgrimage is highly autobiographical. It follows the interior thoughts and experiences Pilgrimage is a 13 volume, 2110 page novel published between 1915 and 1967. From what I鈥檝e found it is currently out of print, but fairly easy to access through used copies of Virago Modern Classics which published the work in 4 volumes. Originally, each volume was published individually until Dimple Hill, the 12th volume. It and the final installment, March Moonlight, were only published in full volume sets.

Pilgrimage is highly autobiographical. It follows the interior thoughts and experiences of Miriam Henderson, a young woman starting out in the world. I believe it covers her life from about age 17-30. Miriam leaves her home when her family falls on hard times financially to become a teacher in Germany. She teaches in different locations for the first few novels and then becomes a secretary at a dental office in London. While in London, she truly finds her confidence in being an independent and single woman. She explores the city and finds a deep connection to the city itself. As the book progresses, she develops her skill as a writer, begins and ends relationships with several men, and travels, gaining a wide array of experience.

The plot in the novel is buried deep within Miriam鈥檚 experience. Her reactions and thoughts are always primary, sometimes (often) to the point that the plot is indiscernible. This can be frustrating. Characters come and go sometimes without introduction and even large life events aren鈥檛 spelled out. Both her mother鈥檚 death and her first sexual experience I had to go back pages later and say, wait - what???

As such, this is not an easy reading experience. The book meanders and definitely loses its way, especially, I felt, later in the work. I think that by about half way through these novels, Richardson knew NO ONE was reading anymore and was truly writing for herself. I wonder if anyone was editing at all. Also, the book is unfinished which feels frustrating at the end of 2000 pages. I鈥檓 not sure Richardson ever intended to stop writing Miriam鈥檚 life experience.

All that said, I still highly recommend reading this. I thought a lot of the writing and ideas were truly groundbreaking. I鈥檝e never read anything quite like this, and I鈥檝e read Proust, Woolf, Faulkner, and some of Joyce so I did have plenty to compare it to as far as interior, stream of consciousness writing. At her best, Richardson writes beautifully and intelligently, with great insight into the female experience. There is a definite feminist slant to her writing. There are certain scenes (Miriam exploring London on bicycle) that I will never forget.

If I were to be honest, I think you can get an excellent feel for Richardson鈥檚 talent and importance by reading the first 4 novels in this series of 13. I recommend those without reservation. And if you are a completist like I am, then, by all means, read the whole thing. But I definitely recommend trying at least part of this neglected novel. I think it deserves to be read.
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Dec 11, 2024 Harriet S rated it really liked it

I loved this stream of consciousness series of novellas which mirror the author's own early life. I sometimes found it hard to follow the events and characters as there is no "narrators voice" to foll in any gaps so it did need my undivided attention. Her descriptions of London and Sussex and even of everyday office life were very effective and I found myself gazing out of the window with her. I found all four voulimes of the Virago edition of Pilgrimage in an Oxfam bookshop together ...more

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